Frustration…

A month ago, I posted the idea that the Raptors have a remote chance of catching Boston Celtics. After all, everything was going well, and the Raptors were rolling.

Well, how things can change in one month. Right now, this team doesn’t come close looking like a playoff team.

It seems like it’s a perfect storm. The team started believing their own press after the all-star break, the schedule got harder, their best player injured, and the players who supposed to contribute, didn’t. Yes, that’s called a perfect shit storm.

What’s so discouraging is their lack of defense and fight in some of these losses. The Sacramento loss, is particularly bad. With all due respect, the Kings are not a good team, but the Raptors didn’t have any idea how to defend. The Kings player are just running for fast break, and no one stopped the ball-handler. This is basic basketball 101, a YMCA player would know this and yet this team have no clue.

The blame does not go to an individual player, but the entire team. It starts from the top player. Bosh was horrible since coming back from injury. You could tell he is not even close to 100%. If you are a Raptor fan, you should worry. Bosh is FT line magnet, and yet he couldn’t get there in the first 3 games, which is inexcusable when you consider the weak Kings big men. I am hoping that with 3 days off, he could get back to the same level or close to it. If not, then you got to wonder if there isn’t something more serious wrong with his body.

The coaching staff also should take a lot of blame on this as well, they received a lot of credit for the Raptors turnaround, so it’s only fair they deserved their share of criticism as well. Triano has not proven that he can motivate players to play defense in a consistent basis. As Sam Mitchell once said, you got to whip their butt once in a while. Triano has to do that especially after the listless effort on Wednesday night.

Other players got to clean up their act as well. That means no more jumpers with 20 seconds left on the shot clock, no more careless turnovers and more importantly, compete in the defensive end.

If they don’t do that, the Raptors may not play in the post season and the future could be very grim.